The United States Code Annotated

The United States Code Annotated is one of the essential resources found in academic libraries. The USCA contains the complete text of the Constitution of the United States of America and of all the codified federal statutes currently in force. The laws—broken out by clauses or by sections—are accompanied by historical notes, references to secondary sources, and, most importantly, by comprehensive notes to the judicial decisions that have interpreted them. The clause of the First Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press, for instance, is accompanied by more 2,700 notes to judicial decisions. Using the USCA’s finely nuanced subject headings, a researcher can quickly locate judicial decisions relating to an enormous range of issues. There are notes to cases on amateur radio transmissions, cartoons, obscene poems, prison publications, drive-in theaters, defamation, picketing, political associations, motion pictures, survival manuals, and parades, to name just a very few. The USCA is a vital source for students of constitutional law and for researchers looking into any area affected by federal legislation. Any student who makes the effort to become familiar with this resource will undoubtedly be rewarded. The USCA is updated regularly.

buck berry

Legal Medicine

Legal Medicine, Sixth Edition. The American College of Legal Medicine (2004)

This treatise, published by the American College of Legal Medicine, comprehensively covers the intersection of law and medicine in seventy-five chapters. The work includes chapters on alternative medicine, risk management, bioethics, fetal interests, dying, privacy, medical malpractice, electronic medical records, medical testimony, nursing, dental litigation, geriatric patients, pain management, sports medicine, bioterrorism, forensic medicine, and other areas. Because the treatise comprises such a wide range of subjects, Legal Medicine, Sixth Edition will be of use to almost any researcher exploring areas where law and medicine overlap. The chapters, authored by experts, are detailed and current. The chapter on the Physician-Patient Relationship, for instance, discusses the basic framework in which this relationship is created and terminated, the duties the relationship imposes, as well as special situations that arise with regard emergency departments, telephone contacts, substitute physicians, telemedicine, and so on. The text is written to be highly accessible. The chapters are extensively footnoted.

Buck Berry

Youth Violence and Delinquency: Monsters & Myths

Youth Violence and Delinquency: Monsters & Myths is a three-volume collection of scholarly articles on youth crime. The work encompasses juvenile offenders & victims, juvenile justice, and juvenile treatment & crime. The works contains thirty-four chapters authored by experts in the fields of criminal justice, criminology, psychology, sociology and other disciplines. The collection is a logical starting point for anyone needing background readings in this multifaceted, rapidly changing, and often controversial area. The articles including intriguing discussions of juvenile firesetting, risks to children who use the Web, issues in juvenile sentencing, and failed delinquency programs.

buck berry

The Long Now Foundation

The Long Now Foundation. http://longnow.org

The Long Now Foundation in San Francisco is dedicated to very long-term thinking to foster responsibility for the next 10,000 years. Founded in 01966 (the Foundation uses 5-digit dates to solve the “deca-millennium bug” 8,000 years hence), it has undertaken several projects. The Rosetta Project aims to encode all known human languages on a micro-etched stone containing over 13,000 pages of documentation (a browsable edition is now available on DVD). The stone aims to exceed the reliability of paper, “a very reliable backup medium for information” if cared for (2000+ years). Other projects include the Long Server (a digital continuity and format conversion project), and a 10,000 gravity-powered clock (which includes a planetary array). A series of speakers is available via podcast (ITunes). You can also place a long-term bet (“the arena for accountable predictions”) at the allied http://ww.longbets.org (current predictor: Warren Buffett). The Foundation is the brain-child of computer visionary Danny Hillis, co-founder of the late, great Thinking Machines, Inc. and author of The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work (1998) (SHU Library QA76.5 .H4918 1999).